Other Christians murdered in area that continues to be wracked by violence.

LAGOS, Nigeria, April 27 (CDN) — The killing of Christians in Jos, Plateau state in Nigeria continued over the weekend with two journalists and five other persons falling victim to Muslim youth gangs.

Nathan S. Dabak, an assistant editor at a newspaper of the Church of Christ in Nigeria (COCIN) called The Light Bearer, and Sunday Gyang Bwede, a reporter at the publication, were stabbed to death on Saturday (April 24) at Gado-Bako in Jos North Local Government Area along with an unidentified motorcyclist.

“The staff of the church were murdered in cold blood by some Hausa Muslim youths,” the Rev. Pandang Yamsat, president of COCIN, told Compass today. “This is clear because they have been using the hand phones of the deceased journalists and boasting that they are the ones that killed them.”

The young Muslim men have been boldly answering calls to the cell phones of the deceased journalists, he said; when a friend of Dabak called his cell phone number, an unknown voice responded, “We have killed all of them – you can do your worst!”

Dabak, 36, and the 39-year-old Bwede had left their office on Saturday morning and were on their way to interview local politician Bulus Kaze when they fell into the hands of young Muslim men, Yamsat said.

The church started a search for the two Christians that day but did not discover their bodies until about noon on Sunday at the mortuary of Jos University Teaching Hospital, he said. He added that the church was eagerly waiting for results of a police investigation.

“The security team of the church has been communicating with the police, but they are yet to make any headway on this unfortunate incident,” he said.

Burial of the slain journalists is scheduled for Friday (April 30).

In his statement on Monday (April 26), Yamsat lamented that “while efforts have been tailored towards the return of peace to the state by the military Special Task Force, it is regrettable that the state is confronted with a spate of killings.”

“The church is still mourning the death of its pastor and his wife killed in Boto, Bauchi state,” Yamsat said, in reference to the April 13 kidnapping and murder of the Rev. Ishaku Kadah, 48, and his 45-year-old wife Selina. “It is sad that it should again be left to face another brutal murder of two of their staff.”

The state branch of the Nigerian Union of Journalists also condemned the circumstances that led to the death of the two journalists, expressing deep concern over what it described as “a series of attacks on its members in recent times in the course of carrying out their legitimate duties.”

Four other Christians also were killed on Saturday (April 24) in the Dutse Uku district of Jos’ Nasarawa Gwom area in a revenge attack following the discovery of the corpse of a teenage Muslim who had been missing. Their names were not released at press time.

The four Christians reportedly died, three of them stabbed to death, when hundreds of Muslim youths rampaged throughout the area in protest.

Earlier, police reportedly exhumed eight bodies from shallow graves in a predominantly Christian village near Jos. The discovery of the bodies brought to 15 the number of corpses found in three days in an area fraught with Muslim aggression that has left hundreds of Christians dead.

Jos has become a flash-point for ethnic and religious tensions in Plateau state, which is located between Nigeria’s mainly Muslim north and Christian south. Previously hundreds of Christian villagers were struck with machetes and burned to death on March 7 in Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat, three villages in Jos South and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas.

On March 17, Muslim Fulani herdsmen assaulted two Christian villages in Plateau state, killing 13 persons, including a pregnant woman and children. In attacks presumably over disputed property but with a level of violence characteristic of jihadist method and motive, men in military camouflage and others in customary clothing also burned 20 houses in Byei and Baten villages, in the Riyom Local Government Area of the state, about 45 kilometers (29 miles) from Jos.

On Jan. 17, two pastors and 46 other Christians were killed in an outbreak of violence in Jos triggered when Muslim youths attacked a Catholic church. Police estimated over 300 lives were lost in subsequent clashes, in which 10 church buildings were burned.

LAGOS, Nigeria, April 20 (CDN) — Suspected Islamic extremists last week abducted and killed a Church of Christ in Nigeria pastor and his wife in Boto village, Bauchi state in northern Nigeria.

The Rev. Ishaku Kadah, 48, and his 45-year-old wife Selina were buried on Saturday (April 17) after unidentified assailants reportedly whisked them from their church headquarters home on Tuesday (April 13) and killed them. Their burnt bodies were found hours later.

On Jan. 22, suspected Islamic extremists had set fire to their church building days after Christians displaced by violence in Plateau state had taken refuge on the church premises.

“This is yet another case of unprovoked killing of Christians, which we condemn, and demand that the law enforcement agents must fish out the perpetrators of this act,” Bishop Musa Fula, state chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria in Bauchi state, told Compass.

Police have reportedly arrested two suspects and have launched a man-hunt for several other accomplices. Authorities are not releasing the names of the suspects.

Boto is located in the predominantly Christian Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area of Bauchi state, which has a history of Muslim attacks on Christians.

“Police claim they are working on it and we want to believe them,” Fula added. “We need assurance that our people are safe. We will soon meet later on the matter to decide our next line of action on these kind of attacks.”

The murdered couple’s son, Simeon Kadah, said an eyewitness who had come to the church premises to collect some rented chairs saw men dragging the pastor and his wife out of their house. Kadah said the men asked the eyewitness if he was a Muslim, and when he told them that he was, they told him to leave the area and tell no one what he had seen.

The Rev. Ladi Thompson of the Macedonian Initiative, an organization fighting anti-Christian persecution, decried the killing of the pastor and his wife, saying it is an indication of the great dangers Christians are exposed to in the predominantly Muslim north.

“This kind of mindless killing follows the same pattern that we have been campaigning against, which many state governments in northern Nigeria are not paying due attention to,” Thompson said. “The government cannot afford to continue to pay lip service to protecting Christians when some people in the name of religion can take the laws into their hands.

Unless we get to the root of cases like this, there will be no end to it.”

Following attacks on Christians near Jos in Plateau state in January and March, sporadic killings of Christians reportedly continue. Previously hundreds of Christian villagers were struck with machetes and burned to death on March 7 in Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat, three villages in Jos South and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas.

On March 17, Muslim Fulani herdsmen assaulted two Christian villages in Plateau state, killing 13 persons, including a pregnant woman and children. In attacks presumably over disputed property but with a level of violence characteristic of jihadist method and motive, men in military camouflage and others in customary clothing also burned 20 houses in Byei and Baten villages, in the Riyom Local Government Area of the state, about 45 kilometers (29 miles) from Jos.

On Jan. 17, two pastors and 46 other Christians were killed in an outbreak of violence in Jos triggered when Muslim youths attacked a Catholic church. Police estimated over 300 lives were lost in subsequent clashes, in which 10 church buildings were burned.

Nigerian police arrested 164 people in connection with a mostly-Christian slaughter of 500, reports MNN. There are 41 charges of terrorism and homicide. With a movement toward justice, is the trouble over?

Todd Nettleton with Voice of the Martyrs likens the violence to a wildfire. "The government or the military comes in and puts a lid on it for a while, and then there’s another breakout. "

Former Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo has said that the violence is fueled more by ethnic, social, and economic problems than by religion.

That may be true, but Nettleton adds: "The level of violence in this case–the fact that it seems to have been a very coordinated effort against Christians–says probably it will happen sooner rather than later, and that it will break out somewhere else."

Some have claimed the attacks were in retaliation for the killing of more than 300 Muslims earlier this year around the same city. Then, on March 17, Muslim herdsmen disguised as soldiers butchered nearly a dozen Christians in two villages near Jos, setting some of them ablaze.

Mainly women and children were killed in both massacres. There are reports that indicate youth are calling for revenge against the Muslims.

VOM supports the persecuted church there. Their team is helping hundreds of Nigerian pastors who continue to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ despite persecution. VOM also provides food, clothing and medical aid to Nigerian Christians who are attacked by Muslim extremists.

The threat of violence won’t stop their work. Nettleton says, "There is going to be some care given to how and where they meet, especially in light of fact that these were clearly coordinated attacks. But there is still going to be a Christian presence there, and there are going to be believers who are reaching out, who are sharing their faith, and who are praying, even for their persecutors."

LAGOS, Nigeria, March 17 (CDN) — Less than two weeks after a massive attack in Nigeria that killed 500 Christians, Muslim Fulani herdsmen today unleashed more horrific violence on two Christian villages in Plateau state, killing 13 persons, including a pregnant woman and children.

In attacks presumably over disputed property but with a level of violence characteristic of jihadist method and motive, men in military camouflage and others in customary clothing also burned 20 houses in Byei and Baten villages, in the Riyom Local Government Area of the state, about 45 kilometers (29 miles) from the state capital, Jos.

Christians in neighboring villages are living in fear of possible attacks by the herdsmen, who have not been deterred by the joint military and police security team enforcing curfew in the state. The ethnic Berom Christians, who live as farmers, have long faced off with Fulani nomads who graze their cattle on the Beroms’ land.

The slaughter comes after a similar attack on March 7 on Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat, three villages in Jos South and Barkin Ladi Local Government Areas where hundreds of villagers were struck with machetes and burned to death.

“The assailants armed with dangerous weapons attacked the two communities simultaneously at about 1 a.m. on Wednesday, March 17,” Brig. Gen. Donald Oji said in a press statement, adding that timely deployment of troops averted further carnage. “Seven of the assailants have been arrested, while troops are still on the trail of more of them. Items recovered from the assailants include three locally made short guns with cartridges, bow and arrows, machetes, knives and cutlasses.”

State Gov. Jonah Jang condemned the killings, alleging that some unnamed persons were fueling misunderstanding among communities in conflict. Because the style of killing is typical of jihadist fundamentalists, Christian leaders suspect Islamic extremists are encouraging the attacks, throwing religious gas on low-burning land and ethnic conflicts.

Dalyop Nyango Mandung, a survivor of the attack whose 90-year-old mother, Ngo Hwo Dongo, was killed in her room, told newsmen that the villagers were awakened by gunshots from the Muslim herdsmen who were barricading their houses. Mandung, however, distinguished the assailants in military fatigues from the Fulani herders.

“We saw them in military uniforms, about two of them were in military uniform and the Fulani were in their normal clothes,” Mandun reportedly said. “My mother was the only one killed in the family.”

Another survivor, Kachollom Pam Dauda, who is pregnant, told Nigerian media that she was lucky to have escaped the killers. She also described the men in military uniform as distinct from the herders, saying, “The killers came and first shot, and the Fulani were machete-ing people.”

“I climbed the roof of the house and held to the wood,” she reportedly said. “It was painful more so that I am pregnant. I saw the killers kill my two sisters-in-law, Chundung and Kangyang – they could not escape. I saw as they were being butchered and slain.”

Dauda said she dared not make any movement that would attract the attention of the killers.

“After they killed my sisters-in-law, they sat at the back of our house and were saying they would still come back in two days to finish us in the village,” she reportedly said. “I saw two soldiers. They were speaking English and were saying, “Come let’s go.’ The Fulanis were more than 20 in number. When they left, my husband’s uncle, Yohanna, came crying saying, ‘They have killed people in the next compound.’”

In the March 7 attack, the ethnic Berom victims also included many women and children killed with machetes by rampaging Fulani herdsmen. About 75 houses were burned. State Information Commissioner Gregory Yenlong confirmed that about 500 persons were killed in the attacks.

Christian leaders said that in the March 7 attack, eyewitnesses said the Fulani Muslims were chanting “Allah Akbar” as they broke into homes and slashed men, women and children.

Gov. Jang said word of the new attacks challenged everyone’s strength to endure.

“It gets to a stage when one remains strong, but when you receive the news of fresh attacks, you get broken before you recover again,” he said. “I have total faith in God because I am a child of God; and because I know there is nothing that happens that God is not aware particularly when it happens to His children. I have talked to God that whatever sin we have committed on the Plateau He should have mercy on us.”

LAGOS, Nigeria, March 8 (CDN) — An uneasy calm prevailed in Plateau state, Nigeria today following the killing of hundreds of Christians early yesterday morning in three farming villages near Jos by ethnic Fulani Muslims.

The mostly ethnic Berom victims included many women and children killed with machetes by rampaging Fulani herdsmen. About 75 houses were also burned.

State Information Commissioner Gregory Yenlong confirmed that about 500 persons were killed in the attacks, which took place mainly in Dogo Nahawa, Zot and Rastat villages.

“We were woken up by gunshots in the middle of the night, and before we knew what was happening, our houses were torched and they started hacking down people” survivor Musa Gyang told media.

The assailants reportedly came on foot from a neighboring state to beat security forces that had been alerted of a possible attack on the villages but did not act beforehand.

The attack on Sunday is the latest in several religious clashes in the state in recent months that have claimed lives and property. Plateau state is a predominantly Christian state in a country almost evenly divided between Christians and Muslims. The Muslim minority has been contesting ownership of some parts of the state, leading to frequent clashes.

Bishop Andersen Bok, national coordinator of the Plateau State Elders Christian Fellowship, along with group Secretary General Musa Pam, described the attack as yet another “jihad and provocation on Christians.”

“Dogo Nahawa is a Christian community,” the Christian leaders said in a statement. “Eyewitnesses say the Hausa Fulani Muslim militants were chanting ‘Allah Akbar,’ broke into houses, cutting human beings, including children and women with their knives and cutlasses.”

Soon after the militants besieged Dogo Nahawa, the Christian leaders said, at 1:30 a.m. they contacted the military, which is in charge of security in the state.

“But we were shocked to find out that the soldiers did not react until about 3:30 a.m., after the Muslim attackers had finished their job and left,” they stated. “We are tired of these genocides on our Christian brothers and state here that we will not let this go unchallenged.”

Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria (PFN) President Ayo Oritsejafor decried the attack on the Christian community as barbaric and urged the federal government to stop the killing of innocent citizens or risk a total breakdown of law and order.

“I have just returned from a trip abroad,” he said. “While I was away, I was inundated with reports of another catastrophe in the Jigawa state capital, where several churches were burnt, and just as I was trying to settle down and collate reports from the field, I am hearing of another on Sunday morning.”

Director of Social Communications, Catholic Archbishop of Lagos, Rev. Monsignor Gabriel Osu said the Sunday killing in Jos is a major setback for the country’s effort to gain the confidence of the international community.

“Do you know that because of things like these, anywhere Nigerians travel to they are subjected to dehumanizing scrutiny?” he said. “Any act of violence at this time is totally condemned, and the government should make haste to fish out all identified perpetrators of such heinous crimes against God so that we can move forward as a people united under one umbrella.”

On Friday (March 5) the National Youth President of the PFN, Dr. Abel Damina, expressed concern over cases of clandestine killings of Christians in remote parts of Plateau state by Islamic extremists and called on the federal government to retrieve sophisticated weapons in their possession.

“Even as I speak to you now, I am receiving reports that some clandestine killings are still going on in the remote areas of Plateau State by the fundamentalists,” Damina reportedly said. “They pounce on Christians and kill them without anybody knowing much of their identity except that they are Christians.”

He added that recently he visited the governor in Jos regarding the crisis and secured photos of Christian victims.

“Young men, Christians, were going to their farm to harvest their produce and the fundamentalists pounced on them,” he said. “They were called infidels. At the last conference, we received reports with photographs of the fundamentalists using AK-47 rifles to destroy our churches. Where did they get the arms from? We have reports of truck loads of arms that had been intercepted, and we did not hear anything about them.”